French police have arrested a former member of the Red Brigades terrorist group and plan to extradite her to Italy.
Marina Petrella was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of committing an unidentified petty crime but was kept in custody because of an outstanding Italian arrest warrant, the ministry said.
In 1992, an Italian court sentenced Petrella in absentia to life in prison on charges including murder and kidnapping, the ministry said. Another ruling a year later confirmed the sentence.
The process to extradite Petrella was under way, the French ministry said. Italian Premier Romano Prodi said he hoped Petrella would be extradited soon.
The radical group plagued Italy with attacks in the 1970s and 1980s, and it most notorious attack was the 1978 kidnapping and slaying of former premier Aldo Moro.
After about a decade of silence, an offshoot of the group reappeared, killing two government advisers in 1999 and 2002.
During the 1970s and 1980s, many Italian left-wing militants fled to France, benefiting from a policy started in 1985 under former Socialist president Francois Mitterrand that allowed them to stay if they renounced their extremist past.
In the past several years, however, France's conservative leaders have moved away from Mr Mitterrand's policy.